Story+1981-04-28+Rotterdam,+The+Netherlands

“This is, this is called ´Independence Day´....thanks....we need, need a little quiet for this one, thank you.....(music starts)....I grew up in this little town....it was about 20 miles inland off the, off the coast, it was only about 10,000 people....and....when I got to be about 16, I started to look around me and....I looked back at, I looked at my friends and tried to see what they were doing and it didn´t seem like anybody was, was going, going anyplace or had a chance of, a chance of getting out of the kind of life they were living, I looked back at my, at my dad and he....he worked, was working in a plastics´ factory and I looked back at his father and he worked in a rugmill in town....and.....it didn´t seem like it was gonna be any different, any different for me....if I could, uh, get a job at all.....(?) I tried to think what was the things that we had in common that, that.....and it looked like the one thing that me and my father....and his father had in common was that we didn´t, we didn´t know enough, we didn´t have enough information about the forces that were controlling our lives....and it seemed like it was information that you couldn´t get anyplace, you couldn´t find it out on the street ´cause everybody was just hanging around, trying to forget about where they were, you couldn´t, you couldn´t get it in school because they never taught things to you that way.... and....and the only place that I could get a feeling for living was when I listened to the radio at night....and it wasn´t so much what people were saying or what the words were but there was this sound, a sound in the singers´ voices that said that life was better....better than the way that, that I was leading it and that my old man was leading it....and then when I got older, I just, I just tried to read because I never liked reading when I was a kid, I never read anything, and I read this book, I was reading, it´s The History of the United States and....and in it I found out how, where I came from and how I ended up....where I was and how easy it is to be a victim of things that you don´t even know exist and you don´t even know are there ´cause I go back and I see my friends at home and there´s a lot of people there that had, that had strong hearts and, and, and force and, and power inside them that just got crushed....to nothing and I guess if you´re, I guess the most important thing is just trying to find out, trying to find out....what are the things that make you who you are because, because even when you know, changing is....is, is hard but the first step is you gotta, you gotta know, you gotta know so....you gotta, you know, there´s, there´s better ways of living I found out than what I was doing....”
 * 28.04.81 Rotterdam, The Netherlands, intro to “Independence Day”**

“This is a song....it was....written by Woody Guthrie and....back, back in the States.....where I guess it´s....I guess it´s the same now everywhere where unemployment is so bad that it seems that when times get tough....there´s always that....that resurgence of people with common interests seem to turn against each other....and in the States there´s always, like, you always see more about, like, the Ku Klux Klan, the National Socialists....and....it´s....this song was written as....I guess it was written as a dream that the land that, that you live in and the land that I live in was put there, put there for us and that it´s no....and that it doesn´t belong to any one group of people, one race or one color or religion....ah.....it´s hard to, it´s hard to sing it when it´s so far away from being true, it seems, when it seems so far out of people´s hearts (?) but it´s a dream that is....it´s about, it´s just about being human and about just decency and respect and being able to live....”
 * 28.04.81 Rotterdam, The Netherlands, intro to “This Land Is Your Land”**

“This is a song, this is from The River, this is.....Marvin Gaye, I was listening to Marvin Gaye´s Greatest Hits the other day.....and he had this song he did with, uh.....with, uh.... Tammy Tarrell, it was called ´It Takes Two´.....and the song says ´It takes one to dream but two to make a dream come true´....I need, uh, I need a little, little quiet for this, thank you....”
 * 28.04.81 Rotterdam, The Netherlands, intro to “Stolen Car”**

//Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi//